


Object In Motion

by notquitesoancient, voicelikerumour



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Aliens, Alternate Universe - Small Town, Baseball, M/M, Slow Burn, episode related- Cloverdale (in a sense)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:01:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23932723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notquitesoancient/pseuds/notquitesoancient, https://archiveofourown.org/users/voicelikerumour/pseuds/voicelikerumour
Summary: Everett Young is a small town baseball coach in the midst of a mid-life crisis; things get a little weird.
Relationships: Chloe Armstrong/Matthew Scott, Everett Young/David Telford (Past), Minor or Background Relationship(s), Nicholas Rush/Everett Young, Sharon Walker/Camile Wray
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [hal_incandenza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hal_incandenza/pseuds/hal_incandenza) for betaing this work.

Rush’s car shudders and comes to a rolling stop someplace approximately seven hours east of the hospital—he’s not entirely sure where. He had only stopped once, to get gas with the meager amount of cash he had immediately available, too delirious with paranoia to even consider using a card.

It’s daytime, which feels wrong.

When he’d left, it had still been dark, and he can’t stand the audacity of the sun ushering in a new day. How dare the Earth adhere to its revolution around this stupid fucking celestial body like nothing had happened? Like part of him hadn’t been irrevocably lost?

The overworked engine gives out a few beleaguered pops as it cools, like cracking knuckles. It’s the only noise around.

Even more so than the sun, he despises the abrupt end to his forward momentum. For hours on end he had hurtled through the American West, glorious vistas melting away into a meaningless blur—and now for the first time being still, something within him rattles the bars on its cages and screams itself hoarse for the sheer need to continue moving, to continue traveling as far as he could possibly get.

Mountains, there are mountains here. He’s unused to such open, alien landscapes, so unlike the densely packed stone of Glasgow, the winding ivy-covered Oxford, or the hip modernity of Berkeley.

A caesura indicates a pause, a break. As does a breath, if you are musically inclined, which he isn’t. Not anymore. Something would always follow, in either case.

Slowly, painfully, he unfolds himself from his compact car, momentary agony lancing through his knees as he becomes fully vertical for the first time in hours and takes a few staggering steps forward. He moves because he has to move, because there is nothing left to do. Not moving has a sense of finality to it.

The air is sweet and dewy with morning, which fades into noon as Rush continues walking down the side of the interstate, his abandoned car long receded into the distance.  
He wishes he could wind down like the car, because when machines stopped they ceased to be, but his machine body would continue to function, even if he stopped his forward momentum. He could walk until his legs gave out, and still his heart would continue distributing oxygenated red blood cells and his lungs would continue drawing in air and it would be a very long time until he ceased to be because the human body is more than its component parts.

He doesn’t think he could tolerate such a horrifically organic ending. Some find comfort in returning to the Earth, but the idea always repulses him thoroughly. The urge to return from whence you came is antithetical to everything he has built his life around. It renders the course of existence meaningless by failure to die in a way that indicates any kind of advancement over a lifetime. No, Rush would not lie down on the side of the road and die. He would continue walking.

Several cars pass him as he walks until one finally stops, rolling sedately beside him as he continues his tortured momentum down the road. He stops only when it’s clear that this car isn’t going anywhere. It’s a police car, old and spattered with dirt, a county Rush has never heard of advertised on its side. The window rolls down, revealing a man with a weathered brown face—although he couldn’t possibly be older than Rush.

“Not to sound like a cliché,” he says in a stolid, Midwestern drawl, “but you’re not from around here.”

Rush stares at him blankly.

“Where are you heading?” he tries again.

Rush finds his voice: “Where are you from?”

To his credit, the officer didn’t bat an eye at the accent, out of place as it is in the mountains of Wherever-the-Fuck, America they were.  
“Cloverdale,” he says.

Rush’s eyes trace the horizon, the swell of mountains fading dreamily into the sky, the alien expanse. He thinks of the small, tastefully decorated flat filled with Gloria’s music, Gloria’s clothes, Gloria’s furniture. He thinks of the man at the college—“Dr. Rush, could I have a moment of your time—”

“There. I’m heading there,” Rush says.

The officer looks surprised for a beat. “We don’t get a lot of folks visiting.”

Rush manages a disparaging look. “I’m not, as you call it, ‘a lot of folks’.”

“I’m starting to get that. Listen, I can give you a ride—”

  
“I’d appreciate that,” Rush says stiffly, and glances behind him. “My car—”

  
“I can send someone after it once we’re in town. If you’ve left anything important, we can run back and get it.”

  
Rush presses a hand to his chest and the papers secured in his blazer pocket crinkle. Papers that shouldn’t exist. Papers that sublimate pure theory into the idea of something tangible, unthinkable. They weigh more than they should. He knows the powers-that-be would do anything to prevent the dissemination of such documents. Lucky for them, he doesn’t plan on doing so—but he doubts that will stop them from pursuing him. “No,” he says with difficulty, “I have everything here.”

  
The officer rubs a hand against his mouth then sighs, and gestures for Rush to get in, which he does after a moment of consideration. He’s greeted with a handshake and a shuttered expression.

  
“Telford, David Telford,” the officer introduces himself.

  
Rush stares at the proffered hand until Telford retracts it with a flash of white teeth and starts up his car without a word. He feels, even more so than when he had been walking, that he is leaving something irreplaceable behind as Telford navigates the mountainous roads winding their way to a destination that will hopefully, in time, prove itself to be the escape he so desperately needs.


	2. Chapter I

“I’ve told you, Chloe, you don’t need to help with this.”

Chloe emerges from behind the ancient sofa with a crumpled bag of chips and a takeout menu for a place Young is fairly certain closed over a year ago.

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you, Coach,” she says dryly, depositing both items into a garbage bag.

Young groans theatrically and peels off one of the rubber gloves Chloe had insisted he wear. (“Cleaning without gloves will dry out your hands like you wouldn’t believe,” she had told him before they had begun. Young didn’t even think he had any in the house, before she had conjured them out of a cabinet.)

“No more calling me ‘Coach’ now, not when you’re marrying my son in—” He mimes checking an invisible watch on his wrist— “just over twenty-four hours.”

“Your  _ son _ ,” she says with mock primness, “still calls you Coach.”

Young represses a smile. “You know as well as I do how hard it is to break that boy of a habit.”

Chloe laughs, bell-like. Young strips of the other glove and they join the chip bag and takeout menu in the garbage. He genuinely can’t remember the last time he had done this intensive of a clean and, truth be told, most of the cleaning solutions Chloe had pulled out from under the sink likely hadn’t seen the light of day since Emily left. His bad knee twinges plaintively as he leverages himself into a standing position.

“So,” Young says, after abandoning his designated corner of the living room in favor of grabbing a beer from the kitchen, “what’s in store for Miss, soon-to-be-Mrs., Harvard Graduate? Besides getting hitched, of course.”

Chloe gives him a dimpled smile. “Well, I may have applied to an internship or two. I know Matt really wants to stay here after being away for so long, so there’s one in the city I’m sure he’d be thrilled if I got.”

Young takes a sip of his beer. “I don’t know if Cloverdale can handle losing its premier political scientist.”

Chloe moves a pillow from one end of the couch to the other. “Cloverdale survived not having me here for the past four years.”

Young thinks about everything that transpired in the past four years and is inclined to disagree—whether or not Chloe’s absence really had any bearing on what had happened.

Chloe seemed to pick up on his train of thought, or more likely, whatever is currently being broadcast on his face.

She gives him a sympathetic look. “Have you… talked to Matt yet?”

Young’s face closes off. “No,” he says briskly, making it clear any further discussion on the subject is less than welcome.

Young can tell from the tightening in the corners of Chloe’s mouth she’s unhappy, but she doesn’t press him. All anyone ever wants to do is talk. He has, he thought, done enough “talking about things” to last a lifetime. 

He looks at the aged clock hung on the wood paneled wall and feigns surprise. “Oh, look at that. Eli should be here soon. He insisted on coming with to pick up Matt. Something about a movie?”

On cue, the front door rattles open as Eli lets himself in. Young gives thanks for small favors as Chloe starts gathering her things. 

Eli does a double take when he reaches the living room and immediately reaches for the camcorder hanging by his side. 

“Couch Young and the bride-to-be have toiled to prepare the house for Matt’s valiant return,” he narrates in a sonorous voice. Chloe throws a dirty towel in his direction and he squawks in indignation. “You ruined my shot!”

Chloe returns Young’s perplexed expression with a roll of her eyes. “He’s recording the wedding,” she says by way of explanation. 

Eli folds the camcorder shut with a click. “I’m filming a documentary,” he says, with faux gravity, “recording the storied tale of love between two high school sweethearts. Just in case I have the opportunity to sell the rights later and have it made into a blockbuster film—” 

Chloe raises another towel threateningly and Eli ducks into the doorway. “Kidding! But for real though, I’m thinking we could get Kiefer Sutherland to narrate—but in the meantime I can do a pretty good impression.”

Young pauses for a beat. “Right.” Kids.

“Well, I should head over to the dry cleaners,” Chloe breaks in, thank god. “I’ll see you both when you come back with Matt.”

She gives Young a cool kiss on the cheek goodbye and flutters her fingers at Eli before making her way out. 

Eli fiddles with his camera as the door shuts behind her, and Young tasks himself with draining his beer. Matt’s likely rolling into town just about now and conflicting feelings of anxiety and joy start to wage a minor war in his stomach. He sets his bottle down with a thunk that Eli eyes warily. 

“Let’s go get the man of the hour.”

* * *

On the way to the bus stop, Eli regales Young with stories of his blog, which broke a hundred hits last night, most of which had to have belonged to his mother, although Young isn’t about to tell him that. The blog, as far as Young can tell, seems to cross a fine line between fiction and real life, rife with regular old town gossip and tin foil hat conspiracies, like UFO sightings and secret government projects. 

Young responds appropriately when needed to give the impression of paying attention. He likes Eli, he really does. He just doesn’t understand a damn thing the kid is talking about most of the time. And either way, he’s rather occupied at the moment suppressing the agonizing tightness establishing itself in his chest, and the shame that accompanies it.

What kind of father is he, that feels anything other than pride and joy at his only son returning home from the military? The sort of father, he thinks, that pretends to be a much better father than he really is. 

He can’t escape the idea he had created over a year ago when Emily left him—the idea that somehow when Matt came back, everything would be put right. Back to normal.

Except it wouldn’t be, and Matt didn’t deserve to bear the weight of the responsibility, shouldn’t have to.

“—Coach?” Eli derails his thoughts, giving him a look that borders on concern. 

Young lets out a frustrated breath and forces himself to relax the white-knuckled grip he had developed on the wheel. He rubs a thumb against the leather of the wheel and sends out a silent apology to his truck before remembering Eli.

“Sorry Eli, I was just…thinking.”

Eli looks at him, uncharacteristically sober. “I bet it’s weird. Having him back now that everything is so—” He waves his hand in an abstract gesture—“different.” 

Young almost can’t speak past the tightness in his throat. “Oh, it’s not that bad. He’ll see his mom at the wedding tomorrow and then it’s the married life—how’s that for different?” He laughs but even he can tell it’s forced.

Now it’s Eli’s turn to unconvincingly say, “Right,” which he does, and then returns his focus to his camcorder. 

They sit in silence for a short while before, without warning, the truck’s radio emits a shriek before settling into a stream of incomprehensible static.

“Jesus,” Young mutters with feeling, willing his heart to settle down.

Next to him, Eli has a hand pressed to his chest, looking spooked. Young shoots a glance at the radio, which he knew had been turned off only to find, bafflingly, that the little display is all lit up.

“Eli—”

“I got it, I got it.”

Young keeps his eyes on the road as Eli fiddles with the dials. The static rises, coalescing at odd intervals into what he could only think of as tones before, just as sudden as it had started, the radio turns itself off.

“Must’ve caught another radio tower,” Young says dismissively. 

Eli continues staring at the radio. “Yeah. Probably.”

They don’t speak for the rest of the time it takes to get to the bus stop, and that’s completely fine by Young, who doesn’t think he can handle any more pointed attempts at emotional conversations or malfunctioning radios. The bus hadn’t arrived by the time they make it, right outside Brody’s and the florist. 

They don’t have to wait long for the dust-spattered bus—the only one that enters Cloverdale—to roll up to the curb, coming to a squealing halt and belching out noxious fumes. Eli fumbles with his camcorder to capture the two BDU-clad figures exiting.

“Our two heroes return from war,” he intones dramatically, squinting through the lens.

Ron thanks the bus driver while Matt shields his eyes against the sun and scans the area. The moment he catches sight of Young and Eli, he breaks out into a grin and trots over, abandoning his bag by Ron.

For a moment all of Young’s anxieties dissipate. His son is back, and that’s all that matters. Matt looks good—tanner and fitter than Young had ever seen him. As soon as he’s within arm’s reach, Young draws him in for a crushing hug. 

“The long-awaited reunion between father and son,” Eli narrates, capturing it all on camera. Young can’t even pretend to be bothered, he’s just content to have his boy back, content enough to make everything alright for the time being.

“I’ve missed you so dang much,” Matt says, voice muffled into the back of Young’s shirt. 

Young chuckles and pulls away. “Two years in the Air Force and he still doesn’t know how to swear,” he directs at Ron, who finally made it over with both bags. 

“Not for lack of teaching on my part, Coach” Ron says cheerfully, offering Young his hand.

“Ronald Greer, don’t be stupid,” Young says gruffly, and pulls him into a brief hug instead. 

Eli sets his camera down long enough to bump fists with Matt before it’s up and recording again, swiveling to Ron. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Ron looks bemused. “For what?”

“For relinquishing my obvious role as best man to be the recorder instead.”

Greer looks unimpressed. “Uh-huh.”

Matt notices just then that only Young and Eli had come to greet them, and his face falls. “Where’s Chloe? I kinda thought she might be here.” He sounds crestfallen, and Young suppresses a smile. Two years away, but he was still his boy.

“She’s meeting us back at the house, kiddo. Something about a dress?”

Matt visibly brightens. Ron throws an arm around his shoulder and jostles him. “Brother, you’re about to spend the rest of your life with Chloe starting—” He checks an imaginary watch on his wrist— “tomorrow. You’ll last a few more minutes.”

Matt meets Young’s eyes when Ron mentions ‘the rest of his life.’ Young abruptly feels drained and turns away. 

“Let’s take this reunion back to the house,” he says briskly, cutting off the conversation.

He gets an affirmation from everyone but Ron who looks distracted by something in the florist’s window. Matt bumps shoulders with him. “Looking for someone?”

Ron blusters and shoves back, and Young has the ingrained urge to tell them off like they’re snot-nosed kids wrestling in the dugout again. The moment passes as they break apart good naturedly and throw their things in the truck bed, clambering up with ease. 

Eli gamely tries to hoist himself up one-handed onto the tire and has to be assisted with a hand on either arm to pull him into the bed. Again Young is transported to simpler years, carpooling to games with a half-dozen kids and coolers full of Gatorade. Those years were the closest he had been, ever really, to plain old happiness. It wasn’t that he’d been miserable when he’d been younger; just always a little serious, a little lonely in a way it had seemed like maybe all the other guys weren’t. He’d never thought of himself as ambitious, but he had wanted to get out in the world and do something, in the way he guesses all teenagers do. But then there was the accident senior year, and the busted knee that had lost him his baseball scholarship and had meant the Air Force was out of the question. So he’d screwed around town. He worked some construction, he got together with Emily, which had been good and then had been comfortable.

But when Matt was a kid, there was something about knowing that there was someone who needed him that made it a little easier to get out of bed in the morning and do his best not to fuck it all up. It was good to have him back. Good to see how strong and happy he was.

He starts the truck and pauses for a moment, unable to make out words but able to hear laughter from the bed. He wishes he could package this moment and revisit it when he can feel something other than dread. 

* * *

Young shuffles his way into the living room, two beers in each hand, and distributes them to the boys.

“Welcome home, kids.” He lifts his own in salute and tips it back.

“How’s the season going, Coach?” Ronald asks.

“Not too bad,” he says. “A couple of the 12-14s are looking pretty good, could go to college if they keep it up. Last weekend, the tee-ball team made it through a whole inning before the outfielders decided to sit in the dirt and play with worms instead.”

“Hey!” says Eli. “No offense to the present company and all, but worms are easily more interesting than baseball. Case in point: name one great sci-fi movie where there’s baseball? Now, the original  _ Star Wars _ ,  _ Dune _ ,  _ Alien _ ’s not really a worm I guess, but it was based on kind of like, a plankton, parasite thing? Close enough.”

“Uh-huh.” Greer shoots an amused look at Matt, who offers: “What about the one with the talking corn?” and the three of them are off arguing whether  _ Field of Dreams  _ counts as science fiction or a “sports drama with mild fantasy elements.”

Young lets himself relax a little, just sitting back and listening to familiar squabbling. For a moment he lets himself think that maybe he’s safe. Maybe things will just be normal, and the fan will stay shit-free til the wedding business is all over, at least.

But the conversation soon dies down and Matt turns to him.

“So Chloe and I were planning on stopping in to see Mom this afternoon. Do you want to come with us, or…?” 

Young feels himself freeze, dread once again taking up residence somewhere in the vicinity of his chest. 

“I. Well. She wants to see you, not me. That is… she’s not really. Talking to me right now.”

“Oh, gee. When we talked on the phone, she made it seem like—”

“Well, you know your mom. Likes to keep up appearances.” He hears the bitter snarl in his own voice and before he can bring himself to meet Matt’s eyes he’s already imagining the look that will be there. Crap. What kind of an asshole is he, disappointing the kid like that the day before his wedding?

“Right. She’s been doing the planning though, with Chloe and her mom?”

“Oh yeah,” Eli cuts in while Young is still scrambling mentally to find anything to say that won’t make things worse. “You know the two of them! Not a chair or a hair will be out of place. Not with the two most formidable former members of the Cloverdale High PTA on the job.”

“Right.”  _ Say something, anything, god damn it, _ Young thinks to himself, but he can’t find the words. 

“I got some great action shots of the whole process—cake tasting, dress shopping—I even got some great footage of an argument about seating arrangements, which I didn’t totally understand, but man, it got heated for a moment there.”

“Eli.” Greer warns.

“Yeah, yeah cool. Let’s all sit here and enjoy a little bit of tense silence. I for one,  _ love _ a good tense silence. The more loaded the better, I always say.” 

Mercifully, there is a knock at the door, and Chloe calls out from the front hall. Matt jumps up to meet her.

“Come on, I bet Kiefer’s gonna have something to say about this,” Greer says, and Young is left alone in the living room with his twin relief and regret.

How had everything gone and gotten so god damned complicated? Sure, Young had never been really good with feelings, or talking, or that sort of thing, but when Matt was a kid it had been easier. Emily tended to have little patience for pouting or door-slamming kind of moods, so most of the time that had been his job. Usually, that meant they went out to the batting cage, took some swings until the kid got tired, and then went down to Brody’s and got a soda. Eventually Matt would start talking about whatever was getting him worked up, and Young wouldn’t have to say much, just sit there and listen. The day when Matt was sixteen and had come home all lit up and grinning, told Young that he had a date with Chloe Armstrong, Young had clapped him on the shoulder, offered him a beer. Told him something about Chloe being a smart girl and being a gentleman. The kind of conversation fathers and sons were supposed to have.

How was he supposed to—he couldn’t.

The happy couple themselves entered the living room and Chloe raised her eyebrows at him over Matt’s shoulder in a look that said, ‘ _ Did you talk to him?’ _

Young just grimaced, and Chloe looked at him reproachfully.

“We’re just going to head over to Emily’s place for a bit and say hello before dinner,” she said out loud.

“Sure thing.” Young said, and in answer to Matt’s continuing look of concern, he added, “Go have a good time with your girlfriend.”

“Gentlemen, now that the guest of honor is out of the way,” Greer announced once the two of them had been shooed out the door, “we have got one hell of a surprise party to set up.”

* * *

It takes the two of them to peel Matt from the vinyl booth at Brody’s. Young isn’t feeling so fresh himself, but altogether better than he could’ve been, had Brody not spent the better half of the last hour sliding him glasses of water on the counter in place of the drinks he’d been pretty damn sure he was ordering.

The only indication Ron gives towards his own state of inebriation is a constant stream of chatter as he loops Matt’s arm over one shoulder.

“There we go, brother. Up and at ‘em. Man, you should see your face right now, priceless, man, priceless. You’re going to be  _ feeling  _ it tomorrow. Aw geez, Chloe’s really going to let me have it. It’s okay don’t even worry about it I take full responsibility this one’s on me—”

“M’fine,” Matt says, finally making an effort to lurch out of his seat. Greer buckles but only because he’s laughing, which triggers the same reaction in Matt.

“Fine? Fine? You are many things right now but I don’t think fine’s one of them…”

Young feels a sharp ache in his chest that he can’t quite put his finger on. It feels like something that’ll disappear if he does so much as look at it sideways, but he does try to look at it, and suddenly he’s thinking of his own bachelor party decades ago, with David helping him out of his seat while his world spins and he staggers, leaning against him just a little too much maybe and David’s saying  _ Come one, Ev, it’s not too hard now one foot in front of the other, Jesus you’re getting  _ married  _ tomorrow  _ and— 

“Coach? I think this is maybe a two-man job.”

Young blinks and he’s back at Brody’s with his son, and his son’s friends, and it’s his  _ son’s  _ bachelor party. Matt, the boy himself, has returned to his booth, cheek plastered to the back of the seat while Vanessa discreetly but pointedly picks up empty glasses and balled-up napkins in the near vicinity. Young guiltily thinks of Chloe insisting that they don’t get her fiancee entirely trashed tonight.

Between the two of them, they manage to manhandle Matt into a vaguely upright position and maneuver around the scattered chairs and abandoned drinks. Brody holds the door open for them on their way out, not a hint of reproach in his face. It’s not the worst state in which Young has staggered out of Brody’s illustrious establishment.

Matt looks a little more lively outside, propelling himself forward with a few unsteady steps. It’s dark and warm out—a perfect August evening. With one arm tucked firmly around his son, Young fumbles around his jacket pockets for his keys. In his drunken, vague state the search takes more thought than it should. He’s just about convinced that he’s left them inside when the ominous blip of a squad car breaks the night. David Telford pulls up to the curb, window lowered.

“Everett,” he says neutrally.

“David,” Young replies, equally neutral.

They were both being very fucking neutral. 

Matt finally takes notice. “Oh shit, are we getting arrested?”

Young says, “No kiddo—” at the same time as Telford says, “No, I just thought I’d offer you guys a ride.”

Telford’s face, as always, is inscrutable. It’s not quite a mask, it’s never been a mask, but he’s always been so good at pushing it all aside and leaving nothing but that strangely omniscient smile and a cordial calmness. Young envies him that.

“I brought my car—” he gestures vaguely, neglecting to mention the misplaced keys.

Telford laughs easily. “None of you are in any condition to drive. Hop in.”

Ron, bless him, looks at Young first, eyebrows raised and he can practically hear him say,  _ ‘Is this cool, coach?’ _

“Alright,” he relents. “Let’s go.”

Matt and Ron take the backseat and Young’s ready to follow them until Telford inclines his head towards the seat next to him. Young can’t think of a reason to refuse that wouldn’t be awkward, so he lets himself in and shuts the door, perhaps a little harder than necessary. 

“Looks like that was some bachelor’s party, huh,” Telford says conversationally, pulling away from the curb.

Matt stirs himself into a more or less upright position. “Oh yeah, it was… too bad you couldn’t make it,” he says, genuine to a fault. 

Ron suddenly finds something very fascinating to look at outside the window. Young closes his eyes briefly and issues a plea for something, anything, to interrupt.

Matt, blissfully ignorant and endearingly earnest, continues. “Thank you for the ride, Uncle David,” he says dutifully, because if Young had taught him anything, it was good manners.

Telford’s eyes flicker to the backseat through the rearview mirror. “Not a problem. Consider it my wedding gift to you. Congratulations, by the way.”

The implications work their way through Matt’s mind in real time and he blinks, shoving himself more upright.

“What d’you mean? You’re coming tomorrow right?”

Young finds himself making fierce eye contact with Telford through the rearview mirror and Telford, to his credit, doesn’t even look the slightest bit surprised that Young hasn’t even broached the subject with his son. It was Telford’s idea in the first place, he remembers—

_ David decides to have this conversation in the supermarket. Young is shopping or, trying to shop. He never really got the hang of these domestic activities once Emily left him, while Matt was gone. So he’s shopping, technically, but mostly he’s standing nonplussed in front of rows and rows of chilled cuts of chicken shiny in their saran wrap, nestled in their little styrofoam plates and damn, he didn’t know that there were so many parts to a chicken—they were small birds weren’t they? There shouldn’t have to be so many options, he thinks as he hefts a package advertising “Organic Grass Fed!” on its front. Thighs and breasts and tenders and cutlets—he just wants to make something that isn’t heated in a microwave, for once. Matt is coming back, he needs—oh, he doesn’t know. To appear like he has his shit together. To be able to make a meal for his kid that isn’t horrifically depressing. Perhaps optimistically, his shopping cart is filled with a variety of vegetables, fruits. Things that have color, that would make the house look inviting. _

_ “I hear Matt’s coming back Friday.” _

_ Young was never good at schooling his features, so it takes a second to relax his face into something passably polite.  _

_ “You heard correct,” he grunts. _

_ David shifts into his field of vision. He looks sympathetic, which means Young’s not going to like what he has to say. Sympathetic and normal, which Young was never able to wrap his mind around. How David could just reset, go back to normal as though their lives hadn’t been irrevocably changed. Well, his hadn’t so much—that was the agonizing part. _

_ “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.” _

_ “Oh, yeah?” Young’s grip tightens on the chicken.  _

_ “I think it’s best if I don’t go to the wedding,” David says casually, as though telling him something banal like, ‘Oh, the game’s on tonight’.  _

__ __ _ Young hurls the packaged chicken into his cart in an explosion of energy pent up from the sheer effort of not manhandling Telford right there and then in Becker’s market. It rattles against the other groceries piled there, but doesn’t actually produce enough sound for it to be cathartic.  _

_ David, to his credit, looks actually fucking remorseful. “Come on, Everett. What did you expect? That by sheer force of will you could make everything as it was?” _

_ “He’s your godson,” he bites out through clenched teeth. _

_ Telford huffs out a small breath, impatient. “And he’s your son. He needs for you to be there.” _

_ “I will be there, and you should be too.” _

_ That look crosses David’s face, the one that suggests he’s disappointed but not altogether surprised. _

_ “That’s not what I meant. You know that.” _

_ “No, I don’t think I do,” Young says. “Because I think it’s pretty clear that once again, the great David Telford can’t make a commitment.” _

_ David has nothing to say to that. It’s clear he’s hit a nerve. Young feels hollow, instead of victorious. He gives his cart a vicious push forward. Telford doesn’t make a move to stop him, or say anything more. Young ends up leaving the grocery store empty handed, too wired to stand through a checkout without punching something. _

__

__

__ __ “No, ah, I won’t be able to make it. Sorry, kid.”

It’s David who looks away first. Matt—confused and maybe a little wounded—slumps back against the door.

“Dang,” he mutters.

Young presses his knuckles to his mouth and looks out the window. The urge to break Telford’s nose is overwhelming, never mind the penalty for assaulting a police officer in their car. But David wouldn’t retaliate that way. He would give him that disappointed face that proved once more that Young had failed to reach whatever obscure measures were expected of him.

“So,” Telford says, breaking the silence, “how was it over there in Kandahar?”

Ron sits up, clearly glad to be in territory he can contribute to. “Boring,” he says plaintively.

“Boring?” 

Matt peels his face from the window. “He just means we didn’t see any action.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Telford says it easily, but Young feels tense all of a sudden.

“What’s wrong with that?” Ron echoes, bristling. He’s starting to work himself up. “It’s a waste of ability, that’s what’s wrong.”

Telford chuckles. “So you’re that good, huh? I know men like you, Ronald. They usually end up getting themselves killed.”

Ron looks furious, and Young’s none too pleased himself. He inclines his head towards Telford. “David, why?” he says, his voice low and tightly controlled. “Why do you always got to start a fight?”

Infuriatingly, Telford seems entirely unbothered by the atmosphere he has created. Only his eyes, firmly focused on the road, are cold.

“I’m just making conversation,” he says mildly.  _ Conversation, my ass,  _ Young thinks. Telford continues, “We’ll have to catch up later, swap war stories.”

Ron scoffs. “Hard time getting high schoolers to stop leaving graffitti in the park?”

“You’d be surprised.” He smiles, tight and small.

“Oh look, we’re home,” Young interrupts quickly. They’re just approaching the drive, actually, but close enough. 

Telford rolls to a stop on the gravel and turns around in his seat. “You have a good wedding now, Matthew. Give my congratulations to Miss Armstrong, too.”

There is a moment where everything feels close to being right, to being normal, because David is being genuine, he  _ does  _ care, and Young catches a glimpse of a possible future he had never dared let himself think possible. Maybe, if he asks now, David will come tomorrow. But then what? Reality is what it is. The moment slides away and he’s left with something far more hollow. It’s always like that with David, is the thing. You think you’ve seen beneath the mask; he does something so unexpected that you think, maybe this is it, maybe you’ve finally gotten inside, but it always ends as soon as it begins. When he’s feeling spiteful, Young thinks there’s nothing inside, that David really is just a self-centered bastard. Most of the time he can’t help but hold onto the hope that that’s not true. And David just absorbs it all, no matter the force of what Young throws at him, no reaction, no push back. Just takes it all in and leaves Young feeling exhausted and never knowing where he stands. He’s jealous too of David’s ability to neutralize everything that touches him while Young just gets knocked down, and one day he isn’t going to be able to pick himself back up. Right now, though, he can’t just stand here feeling sorry for himself. He shakes off the hazy, drunken, downward spiral of his thoughts.

Matt blinks slowly. He’s barely conscious and oh boy, Chloe really is going to give them all hell tomorrow. “Thank you, sir. I will,” he says earnestly. 

Ron opens the door. “Alright brother, you’ve got a date with a glass of water and some Advil.” 

Telford acknowledges Ron’s cursory goodbye nod as he half drags Matt from the back of the car. Young’s hand is on the door handle, absolutely certain he doesn’t want to be left alone in the car with Telford and ready to start the three-legged trek up to the drive.

Telford puts a hand on Young’s shoulder, familiar, and he stiffens, fighting against every impulse that drives him to resort to violence. 

“You take care, Everett. I mean it.”

“Yeah,” he says automatically, throat closing. “Right.” 

He shrugs off Telford’s hand and exits the car, slamming the door shut. There’s an awkward moment of silence as Young refuses to turn around and Telford’s squad car remains idling before, with a slight cough of exhaust and the crunching of gravel, he drives away into the night. He continues standing there, trapped in some kind of directionless limbo listening to the ambient scream of cicadas and rustling of grass until Ron and Matt reach the house.

“Coach, you got the house key?” Ron shouts over. 

Young drags himself into the present. “Yeah, give me a minute.” Everything that has happened—Emily, David, the past year—has to be put away. For Matt’s sake, if nothing else. With a sigh, he heads down the drive, David’s touch still lingering on his shoulder.


	3. Interlude: Brody's Bar 1:00pm

“Yeesh, this place is a mess.”

“That’s what happens when you have every man in Cloverdale aged 21 and up packed into a bar for a bachelor’s party.”

“Sounds like a fun night.”

“Oh, come on, Park. You’ll get to see Ron drunkenly dance to the electric slide after the wedding tonight. You weren’t missing much.”

“Speaking of—”

“Oh boy.”

“I don’t know. I just feel kinda bad, you know? Matt and Chloe are so cute, and of course everyone’s happy for them, but you know everyone’s going to be gossiping the entire time.”

“I mean, what else is there to do at a wedding?” 

“Adam Brody, don’t be such a cynic!”

“Ow! What was that for? Come on Dale, back me up.”

“I don’t know, she has a bit of a point…”

“Oh please, don’t give me that. Like you don’t have fifty bucks on Coach and Emily causing a scene.”

“Wow, rude.”

“How many bets are riding on this wedding?”

“…At least three.”

“Not all of them are about. . . you know.” 

“Yeah, we’ve both got money against Rush making a public appearance after the ‘I dos’ are exchanged.”

“Maybe he’d show up to things if, you know, people weren’t always betting against him.”

“You’re an incurable optimist, Lisa.”

“The man is allergic to human interaction.”

“I once said hi to him at Becker’s and he asked me why I was taking up space in the produce aisle.”

“I witnessed him reduce Barnes to tears because they didn’t have a specific type of pen in stock.”

“He once asked me to fix the lights in his office and looked at me like I was insane when I tried to tell him I’m a bartender, not an electrician.”

“Alright, alright. So he’s… an acquired taste.” 

“Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“The two of you are impossible.”

“Anyways, I guess we’ll just have to find out along with everyone else tonight.”

“So… is anyone going to let me in on these outstanding bets?”

“And here I thought we were supposed to be cynics.”


	4. Chapter II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to hal_incandenza for beta-ing this work.
> 
> Suggested listening: A Little Soul by Pulp and This is the world we know, the world of air and breathing and sun and beating hearts: Mvmt IV. The Closer You Get, The Stranger The Stars Look... by Maslanka

Weddings are not a part of this job that Rush particularly relishes. They contain a number of elements which put him on edge. Namely: the widespread contemplation of matrimony and the associations contained with it, an atmosphere of sentimentality, and parties. He has, therefore, elected not to remember his morning appointment today and is only reminded of it by the buzzing of the intercom.

Shoving his notebook into a drawer, he acknowledges the visitor.

“Hi. I’m Matt Scott. You’re marrying me tonight? I mean, me and my girlfriend.”

“I wasn’t confused. Come in.”

He is only half listening as the boy nervously waffles on about “the usual” vows looking like a child afraid of being given detention. Rush’s mind is still preoccupied with what he had been writing. He had, yesterday, been down the street at Volker’s, calculating the ideal approach to purchasing a bottle of aspirin tablets while avoiding the abjectly painful ordeal of the man’s fumbling attempts at small talk. The radio in the pharmacy had abruptly cut off the usual banal pop music with a burst of static which had resolved into a series of frequencies before fizzling back into the same song as before 20 seconds later. Something about those frequencies had caught him. They’d felt ordered. Their apposition had had a sense of intentionality as opposed to random interference. He had turned heel and walked back out of the pharmacy, ignoring Volker calling “Wait, Rush, did you want something?” and returned to his apartment, digging out a radio. He was not generally in the habit of listening to the radio, given that any radio station whose broadcasts could be received in Cloverdale played nothing which fell into the category of things that Rush was interested in listening to. The potential exception of the local PBS station had been explored and excluded on the grounds that musical selections made without personal context had on occasion… presented problems. But he had uncovered the radio and spent the rest of the afternoon scanning, looking for a repetition of the phenomenon with no luck.

But the boy was still talking, saying, “Sorry, I’m just a little hungover.”

“Like father, like son,” Rush says, dryly.

“My dad is a great man,” Scott replies, which is a laugh. Rush did preside over the man’s divorce hearings after all. Prior to that experience, Rush had only been peripherally aware of Young, in the way which was seemingly unavoidable in Cloverdale. While the details of the matter had been intriguing, seemingly incongruous with Young’s reputation, Young himself had appeared to be every bit the dull, sports-watching, beer-drinking specimen of the rural American man that Rush had always assumed he would be. Young had shown up to the proceedings hungover more often than not and had been, by turns, moody, pleading, and explosive. Not a charming combination, and certainly not one which had inspired a sense of greatness. 

“Anyways, we talked about it, me and Chloe, and we decided to go with the normal vows. They’re all good,” the boy continues, apparently choosing to move past Rush’s assessment of his father’s character. Slightly disappointing—one of the few things which Rush had appreciated about having Young in his office was that the man could always be counted on to push back if you shoved at him.

“Traditional vows it is.” Rush leans back and puts his feet up on the desk. “Is it to be a traditional marriage as well, then?”

“Erm… Sir?”

“Miss Armstrong stays here, raises a couple of your brats while you go off to far-off lands in the service of doing whatever someone tells you to just because he’s wearing more colorful ribbons than you?”

“No! I mean, I never really thought about it like that. We don’t want kids, I think? Not yet anyways.” 

“So you haven't thought about it? Just checking it off the to-do list?”

“No! We’re just… figuring it out, I guess? Chloe’s looking for internships and I’ll do… whatever. I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.” Rush steeples his fingers, and looks sharply at him. Which has the desired effect, as Scott continues defensively, “Look I know I’m not as smart as her, or whatever, but I have thought about it! And I am nervous. I’m scared.”

“Have you spoken to your father about it?”

“Yeah. Every time I try to say something, he just says that everything’s great, I should just be happy.”

“The sage advice of a great man.” 

“You were married, yeah?” Scott looks pointedly at the ring on Rush’s hand. Rush flexes the hand involuntarily.

“Marriage is a dangerous thing, Matthew, for everyone involved. Don’t fuck it up, that’s my advice.”

“Um… Thanks?”

“Seven o’clock, then?”

“Yeah. I’ll see you there.” With that, Scott leaves Rush’s office, still looking confused and a little ill. Rush takes his notebook back out of the drawer and returns to moving frequencies around, looking for the rule.

Later, as he dresses for the ceremony, his thoughts are drawn back to the matter of his own marriage. Obviously, were Gloria still here, then Rush would not be here; ‘here’ being read in the first usage as ‘alive’ and in the second as ‘in this situation’. Her hypothetical perspective on the state of his life shouldn’t matter. It would also, as it always had been, be the only perspective which mattered. Most people simply lack the context for the joke that was his life in Cloverdale. Gloria, on the other hand, would get the joke. 

He is, in a sense, a man on the run, and on the run in the American West at that. He had arrived in town with no clothes other than the jeans, t-shirt, and grey jacket that he had been wearing that day. In a pique of something—whimsy, possibly hysteria—when David had eventually insisted that he couldn’t wear those same clothes for the remainder of his life, he had purchased items including boots, Western-style shirts, a leather coat, and a bolo tie (the one he is now wearing) from the Western outfitters on Main Street. While this impulsive departure from his previous wardrobe would likely have marked him as an eccentric were he still in Berkeley (much less Oxford), it appeared that something like half the population of Cloverdale, Wyoming got their clothes from a similar source, and his own raised few eyebrows. Having no reason to do otherwise, he continued to dress this way. It was a similar impulse that had brought him to this job. Telford, again, had suggested the appointment to justice of the peace. Why, Rush hadn’t been sure at the time, and still sometimes tried to puzzle out. Typically, when David was pressed for details, he took on a mysterious air and a bemused condescension, which did nothing but piss Rush off. But the symmetry of being on the run from the law (in a sense) and becoming the law (in a sense) had appealed to him. Besides, as often as he had regretted the choice, he didn’t have many transferable skills of the kind that were of use in this technological backwater, and he wasn’t about to teach arithmetic to children.

Yes, she would get the joke. She would find it funny, a little sad, she would tease him about the tendency for theatrics which she always insisted was his chief instinct. Neither of them would be here though, if she were alive, if he hadn’t run away and left their life behind. 

* * *

Young has been at the community center all day, carrying chairs around and doing his best to make himself useful and not get yelled at by Chloe’s mom. Emily was there, of course, and the two of them had exchanged a few words, cold and carefully civil. It was for the kids though, who he hopes have been having a better time with their preparations than he has. 

Everything is just about in place, Young has just finished carrying the last of the camera stuff in from where Eli had loaded it into his truck this morning. He had tried in vain to at least get started on hooking it all up but he’s just about at a loss. He has just settled on giving up and waiting for Eli to get here when Eli himself walks in, along with Greer tuxes and all.

“Hey, Coach,” says Greer, giving a whistle “looking good in here!”

“Hey. You kids clean up nice,” Young replies, “Where’s the groom?”

“He’s in the kitchen,” Eli says, “Eating some chicken soup for the hungover soul.”

“Man could use a pep talk if you ask me, sir,” Greer adds.

“Right.” Young tries not to grimace. He straightens himself up, nods at the boys, and makes his way to the community center kitchen. He’s not sure he’s got much of a pep talk in him. The whole day he’s felt on the verge of causing some kind of catastrophe. He just keeps getting the feeling that he’s going to trip and fumble into something that brings Matt and Chloe’s whole day crashing down. Which is a stupid feeling. So he steels himself to face Matt, where he finds him sitting at the laminate folding table, staring at his soup looking pale and scared. 

Young doesn’t say anything. He just leans against the wall and waits for Matt to talk.

“Chloe... This morning she asked me if I was only marrying her because it was what I was supposed to do. You know, come back from the Air Force and marry my high school sweetheart and not look any further. And then I had that meeting, with the justice, about the vows, and I know that guy’s just an asshole, but he said the same thing. I don’t think that’s what I’m doing, but everyone seems to think so. What if that is what I’m doing?” 

“You’re not.” Young wants to say more; he wants to say that he understands. That he has felt that fear for so long, and that’s how he knows that Matt is doing this for the right reasons. He knows that in spite of all the ways that Young has messed up in the 15 years since he became his dad that Matt is not like him in this, that he’s not going to make the same mistakes. He wants to take the unnameable feeling in the center of himself, and he wants to show it to Matt and show him that he understands. But it’s too large and too frightening and he can’t even start to think about how to say it so he just pushes it away. He crushes it down and pushes it into a corner so that he can think. Matt doesn’t need him to be vulnerable, he needs him to be strong, free from doubt.

“But how do you know? How do I know?”

“Are you saying you don’t love Chloe?”

“No! No, I love her and I want to be married to her! I just—I was thinking about what you said when—”

“That’s different.”

“When you called me to tell me that you and Mom were getting a divorce. You said that it had been a long time coming. That you weren’t married for the right reasons. How do I know if they’re the right reasons, Coach? What if I wake up one day and realize I did it all wrong?” 

“Hey. What do you want from me?” 

“Just tell me the right thing to do.”

“Oh, you think—you think I know?” Young gives a huff of laughter, hating the bitterness of the sound even as he does it. And he knows he’s screwing up massively even as he says it but all he can think of is every mistake he ever made in his own marriage, from the first god damned day he and Emily met.

“I’m asking you, please, Dad…” 

“Jesus, kid.” Young puts his head in his hands. “Look. Go out there and get married. You’ll be happy. Try to be happy.”

Matt swallows and stands, he looks like he’s steeling himself. Shit. Young has really screwed this one up. At a loss, he forces a smile and moves to slap a hand on Matt’s shoulder.

“It’ll all be alright.” Young says, sounding a little weak even to himself.

It is alright though. In spite of Young, maybe. But that’s good. He stands in the front row and watches Matthew as all the fear and doubt is melted away by his obvious joy at seeing Chloe walk through the door. And he sees the same transformation on Chloe’s face as she walks down the aisle on her mother’s arm. 

Young can’t help thinking back to his own wedding, and wishes he hadn’t. It gives him a disconcerting sense of symmetry to see Rush up there performing the ceremony, to see Emily seated a few seats away. It all strengthens the gnawing feeling that he’s passing all of his problems down to the next generation before he’s even figured out what to do about them himself. He still feels guilty for the portion of the doubt which he knows he put there, with his words, and his actions, his own personal failings. He feels pretty sure, though, that Matthew’s not going to screw things up, that he’s managed to avoid most of the worst of Young’s own problems. As the couple exchanges their vows Young feels a certainty that they’re going to be alright. They’ll make their own mistakes, create their own problems, but they’ll make it out the other side.

When the wedding party meets back up in the lobby and Matt grins and hugs him, and Chloe, still with happy tears in her eyes, leans in to kiss him on the cheek, Young lets himself feel the uncomplicated joy of this moment. He holds onto the feeling through the photos, through the DJ set-up back in the community center, even all the way through the first dance. But it starts to decay and drop off quickly as the night wears on and loses its structure. He finds his thoughts coming back to his conversation with Matt earlier, to the conversations he’s avoided over the past couple of days, and they keep spiraling down.

The party feels like it’s been going on for hours. According to Young’s watch, which he’s checked a dozen times in the last five or so minutes, it’s only been one. Which makes him feel horrible because  _ this  _ is one of the happiest nights of his son’s life and Young should be enjoying himself too, surrounded by friends and family and loved ones, instead of making what has to be the most agonizing small talk on the fringes while a jarring sense of  _ wrongness  _ grows in the pit of his stomach. 

Matt and Chloe are going to be fine. They’re good kids. It’s him who’s the problem. 

Not just him, because it’s also David and Emily and the last three years of his life, really. He swirls the ice in his drink morosely and watches Matt and Chloe as they’re approached by guests and well-wishers at the center of the hall.

They look happy. Not only that—they look natural, aside from Matt’s obvious discomfort in his vaguely ill-fitting tuxedo.

They’re not together every moment but they orbit each other like satellites—Matt circling back occasionally with a refilled drink or a bite of food and Chloe taking every opportunity to brush her hand against his, to touch his arm as though to confirm that each moment is grounded in reality. In these instances, Matt looks on at her with such sheer adoration it feels like witnessing a private moment.

Ah, newlyweds.

He takes a long drink.

“I thought this was a wedding, not a funeral.”

Young turns, even if he doesn’t need confirmation that it’s Camille, looking as collected and put-together as usual. He doesn’t care for the vague sympathetic cast of her smile.

He tries to smile as well, but he’s sure it turns out a little forced.

“Do I look that bad?”

Camille gives him a considering look over the top of her wine glass that suggests she’s in no mood to indulge him.

“I’d say in the stoicism department, I’d give you top marks. Hardly the mood for a party, though.”

Young grunts and takes another sip of his drink. He’s not sure which one he’s on, but the swirl of party guests in their dress clothes at the edges of his vision is both tantalizing and slightly nauseating.

“It’s so nice to see Matt back home,” she says, “and, I can’t believe I’m saying it, Ronald too.” Despite the words, there’s a fond smile on her face.

Young makes an amused sound. “Don’t tell me you’re getting nostalgic for their high school days.”

“Hardly.”

“It’s good to have them back.” He means it in a way that doesn’t feel properly conveyed by the words.

“Mm.”

A slightly awkward silence swells between them as Young mentally runs through possible avenues of conversation—the team? Sharon? Last week’s town council meeting? He knows what  _ he’d  _ like to avoid talking about, and he’s sure that with every passing second the likelihood of Camille bringing up some introspective and personal topic increases exponentially. 

“Just… try to look happier,” Camille says before he has a chance to find an appropriate and safe avenue of distraction.

“I  _ am  _ happy,” Young replies reflexively. The look of incredulity Camille gives him practically burns. “I mean—you know what I mean. I’m happy for them—” He gestures towards Matt and Chloe, where they’re attached once again in the center of the room. Chloe is flushed and laughing, and Young watches as Matt tucks a flyaway strand of hair behind her ear.

“I know that. Anyone who knows you knows that. I just couldn’t help but notice that David isn’t here, and between that and Emily back in town—”

“This has nothing to do with David,” Young grits out, his grip on his glass tightening, letting the comment about Emily slide. “And for the record, he made the choice not to come.” As though their short conversation at Becker’s a few days ago hadn’t immediately appeared in the town’s ever-grinding rumor mill.

Camille purses her lips, looking exasperated. “I’m letting you know you can talk to me, if you need to. That’s all.”

Young feels the tension drain out of his body and he rubs tiredly under eyes. The world sways gently. “I’m sorry, Camille. I’m being an asshole.” She just gives him a tight diplomatic smile, not refuting his statement, and touches a hand lightly to his shoulder.

“If you do need to talk, you know where to find me. Take care of yourself, Everett.” Young pretends not to notice the significant glance she gives the drink in his hand as she walks away.

Young returns to the bar, or rather, the table where earlier he, Ron, and Eli had set out the coolers full of beer and soda, the bottles of liquor, and the stacks of glasses that Chloe’s mom had ordered personalized with Matt and Chloe’s name and the day's date. He fishes a beer out of a cooler, and isn’t sure what to do from there. Looking out at the room it seems impossible that there could be anyone here he hasn’t spoken to yet. The kids are all out on the dance floor, Matt and Chloe dancing close and sweet. Lisa, Ron, Eli, and assorted other friends of theirs from high school are all dancing in a loose circle. Eventually Young resolves to just pick a direction and park himself in a chair somewhere. If he’s needed, someone will come find him. 

He makes his way to the chosen chair with the kind of determination and slight tunnel vision that forces him to acknowledge a state of drunkenness that is maybe more than ideal. But he resolutely plops down and takes a pull of his beer regardless.

A figure slides into the corner of his eye accompanied by the click of a lighter and the acrid smell of cigarette smoke. Young doesn’t even bother turning to see who it is. 

“No smoking in here,” he grumbles, irritable but glad he’s found someone to take his ire out on. Someone, at least, that he won’t feel guilty about being an asshole towards later.

“I don’t see a sign saying so anywhere,” Rush says archly. He’s right, there isn’t a sign anywhere, but people typically are supposed to know better than to smoke inside community centers. Or maybe that’s just Young.

“It’s just, you know. Rude,” Young says peevishly.

“So is moping in a corner getting hammered at your son’s wedding party and failing to give even a passing indication of functionality.”

Young finally turns to give Rush a baleful look. He finds the JP’s get-up irritating in a way he can’t put a finger on. Like the man had only a passing knowledge of what people in the American West looked like when he came here from lord knows where, and was doing his damnedest to blend in. He takes particular offense to the bolo tie which, under different circumstances Young might have found dashing, but in this instance, when the man wearing it is so irritating, it merely aggravates him. 

Rush’s mouth twitches in an almost-smile and Young grimaces in return. He doesn’t like thinking that other people might know what he’s thinking. 

Despite their infrequent interactions in the short few years Rush had been in town, they had cultivated a relationship built on mutual distaste. Rush’s low opinion of Young had no doubt been established during Young’s divorce proceedings which, even he admits, aren’t among his shining moments. Still, aside from that, Rush inexplicably seems to take affront to Young’s every action and, in turn, Young finds him baffling and rude, and they do well to keep clear of each other in normal situations. This, however, isn’t a normal situation and maybe he’s not the only one feeling inclined to pick at old wounds tonight.

“I’m surprised you’re sticking around. Didn’t think community functions were your thing,” Young finally says, and takes another pull of his beer.

Rush gestures with his other hand, holding a glass tumbler delicately from the top. “Open bar,” he explains. 

Young looks down at his nearly empty beer. “I guess I can’t argue with that.”

They spend a moment in somewhat companionable silence while Young finishes his beer and watches the room. He notices Brody and Volker watching the two of them with interest, and slightly sour expressions. He can’t help but chuckle. Rush raises a questioning brow.

“Looks like you might’ve lost some people money,” he points out.

“I imagine it’s nothing compared to the money people most likely have on you,” Rush snipes back.

“And how would you know that?”

“Contrary to popular belief, and the never-ending grind of this town’s ridiculously active rumor mill, I don’t live under a rock.”

“It’s more of an office-shaped cave.” Young remembers signing the divorce papers in Rush’s absurd closet-sized office, feeling claustrophobic, like the walls were about the close in on him.

“My point still stands,” Rush says haughtily. 

That puts a damper on anything resembling a good mood he’d been trying to cultivate.

Rush seems to notice the attitude shift. “What,” he says a little nastily, “not fun being the center of intrigue?” 

“I’m not—that’s not true,” Young says defensively. He has the unpleasant feeling of being picked apart by Rush’s dark-eyed gaze in a way that makes him want to put a fist through a wall just to escape. 

“Denial isn’t a flattering look, Coach Young.” 

Everyone in town calls him Coach. It’s a charming reality he’s learned to live with—however, when Rush does so it feels deeply ironic, like a joke. Young doesn’t appreciate being made to feel like more of a joke than he already is. He stands from his small metal folding chair and the world slides a little bit around him. It’s okay though—he feels more in control standing up. He’s taller than Rush, taller and more sturdily built. 

Rush looks unimpressed more than intimidated. The condescending sense of superiority that Rush is projecting makes Young self-conscious about his own transparent aggression, although not as much as it just makes him want to hit the man.

“Is there a reason you’re being such an asshole,” he says bluntly.

Rush drops the butt of his cigarette into the remaining sip of whatever he had been drinking and places the tumbler on top of a cooler. “No particular reason. It’s just that I had the pleasure of meeting with young Matthew today to discuss vows… He was in quite the state. I’d hate to see the apple not fall far from the tree.”

Young pushes into Rush’s space, forcing the other man to take a step back and shoves a blunt finger into his chest. “Don’t talk about my son, Rush.”

Rush peers somewhere past Young’s shoulder with interest. “Oh, it looks like someone’s tugging your leash.”

Young turns to look behind him. Sure enough, Emily has caught wind of the trouble brewing in their corner and is determinedly cutting through the party crowd with a stony expression fixed on her face. For some reason, that’s the final straw. Young’s unwilling to admit that maybe he had been spoiling for a fight anyways, since everybody started walking around him on eggshells, and it’s starting to make him feel like he’s lost more than just a sense of normalcy. Rush has no qualms about treating Young the way he probably deserves and the more he thinks about it, so does Emily. But where Rush is just an asshole Emily does so because she, more than anyone else, truly knows him. More than that. She knows of the fundamentally broken thing inside of him and refuses to let him make excuses for it. Young is unclear where Rush fits in, just that for reasons unknown to him, he—unlike the rest of the town—holds him accountable and then some.

He’s inches away from Rush, and it’s so easy to flatten his hand and shove it against his chest, like testing the boundaries of a rubber band before it snaps. The push sends Rush into the wall behind him, and okay, maybe Young had underestimated just how small the man was—bony like there was nothing under that slick western suit.

The moment Rush’s back connects with the wall he surges forward like he had just been waiting for Young to break some unspoken barrier. Both his hands connect with Young’s chest, but Young hardly stumbles backwards since, well, he’s been in more fights than he’d care to recount.

Baring his teeth, Young socks Rush in the nose, grimly thrilled at the impact of skin on skin. Rush, to his credit, does not go down like a sack of rocks, but instead delivers a neat right hook to Young’s face, faster than Young can track given his current condition.

Before any more blows can be exchanged, someone grabs Young from behind and jerks him away. Emily steps between him and Rush, mouth set at a furious slant. Young has the bizarre urge to tell her how good she looks which, although true, couldn’t possibly deescalate the situation. He thinks a bit about how unfair it is, actually, that Emily can just paint her face and pin up her hair and look exquisitely put together, no matter the situation. 

“My god, Everett. What is wrong with you,” she hisses, “David doesn’t come so you decide to pitch a fit and cause a scene?” 

David’s name sounds venomous in her mouth. A strand of hair floats loose from the elaborate loop it’s tied up in and Young resists the urge to mention it.

“This has nothing to do with David,” he grits out, furious that she would even bring him up.

She’s right, though. He has caused a scene. People are still dancing on the floor and the music is still pulsing but there is no disguising the looks cut their way. He wrenches out of the loose grip Ron has remaining on his arm and Ron takes a step back, hands half-raised.

“I just didn’t want you to do anything else you might regret, Coach,” he says apologetically. 

“Of course it has to do with David. Everything has to do with David,” Emily talks over him, and Young moves to grab her arm. 

“Emily, come on—”

Wrong move. She wrenches her arm from his grip. 

“I really didn’t think it would be too much to ask for you to show up to our son’s wedding and act like a father for one night,” she says coldly.

“Hey,” Young says sharply, voice rising a notch, “I’m here, I showed up. What else do you want me to do?” 

Once more, the wrong thing to say. Emily nods, like she had gotten all the confirmation that she needed about Young’s failure to live up to any kind of standard.

“That’s exactly it,” she says, still cool. “You just showed up.” 

Someone clears their throat behind them. Young closes his eyes briefly. Christ, he had forgotten about Rush. The JP has, at least, the fucking good grace to look contrite as he addresses Emily.

“I apologize for the disturbance, Ms. Yoder. I think now would be a good time for me to head home. It was a lovely party,” he says evenly. Young tries to keep the incredulity off his face, but he genuinely can’t comprehend the man’s bizarre shift to politeness. 

Since apparently Rush and Emily have consulted the same book on manners and behavior, she nods politely. “Of course. And thank you for the wonderful service, Dr. Rush.” Young wishes he had another drink.

Rush nods and slips out, and Young envies the bastard, more so now that Emily’s undivided attention is once more on him—not to mention the humiliation of having Ron bear witness to this… moment of weakness.

“You’re drunk, Everett,” is all she says, sounding more exhausted than accusatory. “Go home.”

He doesn’t think he can, but he can’t say that. Just like he can’t say,  _ It hasn’t felt like home since you left, _ which he knew would hurt her even if they were both well aware of the lie.

“I bet you’d love that,” he says instead, because there is always more than one way to make a situation worse. “Get me out of the way so you don’t have to worry about me fucking things up more than I already have. I get it, I do. It’s fine. Go and—” He makes an abstract gesture— “show off how well adjusted you are. Although, although I sure imagine it helps having me around. For the comparison.”

Emily’s nostrils flare. Ron makes a warning sound that is absolutely directed towards Young. “You know—” Emily starts and then breaks off, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Forget it. Go home. Stay and make a fool of yourself and ruin Matthew’s night. I don’t care. Goodnight, Everett.” 

Her turning to walk away feels like a slap in the face.

“Emily—” Young starts and makes a move to follow her when Ron stops him with a surprisingly gentle hand on his arm.

“I think you need to go talk a walk, Coach,” he says in a low voice.

Young knows those words. He used to tell them to Ron when he was just a kid throwing his bat to the ground and ready to rain unholy ten-year-old fury on the opposing Little League team.  _ Take a walk, Ronald _ , he’d say with a heavy hand on his little shoulder, and Ron would grit his teeth and say,  _ Yes, Coach _ and stomp off to do his lap around the field. Sometimes, Matthew would clamber out of the dugout and walk with him until they’d both return laughing, with the threat of violence dissipated.

Young wonders what it means to have these roles reversed now. His throat tightens. “Don’t worry, Ronald. I’m leaving,” he says gruffly. 

Ron removes his hand from his arm but doesn’t look totally convinced.

Young finds that he can’t quite look at him. 

“When you see Matthew, tell him—tell him I went on home. Two nights of partying are just about too much for his old man.” Young tries to back up the attempted joke with a weak chuckle that Ron is clearly not buying.

“Right,” he says, but he does let Young duck out of the back entrance of the community center anyways.

There’s an odd sort of hysteria mounting in him as he pushes his way outside. It refuses to dissipate, even in the relative calm of the quiet summer evening. The only thing clear to him is that he has to leave. Staying isn’t an option, and he tells himself it’s for everybody else’s sake, but chances are he’s just being a coward.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” 

Young jerks his head around to glare at Rush. He can’t believe the sheer levels of misfortune he is operating under as Rush grinds out another cigarette under the toe of his elegant boot. 

He has an aggressive retort building up but it dies when he realizes how uncomfortably bizarre he must look standing stock-still in the middle of the sidewalk. “I… don’t know, actually,” he admits, and Rush narrows his eyes at the display of honesty.

“Well, evidently you’re in no condition to be driving, so were you instead thinking you would devote yourself fully to being a public menace drunkenly wandering the streets until morning?” 

Young blinks. “I’m not a public menace.”

Rush makes a derisive sound. “I’m sure the esteemed Cloverdale police department feels otherwise.”

A wave of nausea unrelated to alcohol sweeps through him and he remembers another night, terribly similar to this, and David’s on duty, he’s the one who picks him up and he says,  _ Woah there, Ev. You’re standing out in the middle of the goddamn street, you know that? _ and when they get to police station David keeps on driving and— But that was two years ago and this is now, and he’s under no illusion that David wouldn’t deposit him at the station to dry out, like he should’ve done then.

“Yes,” he says flatly, “I think you might be right about that.”

Now Rush’s expression is laced with—not concern, no, but something more complicated than his normal distaste. He sighs through his nose and rakes a hand through his absurdly long hair. For the ceremony, he had slicked it back on the sides, but at some point during his brief tussle with Young it had worked itself into a much looser state. 

“Do you have  _ anywhere _ at all you can go?” He sounds… exasperated.

“No, I uh, told Matt and Chloe that the house was theirs tonight. I was going to crash at Camille and Sharon’s but—” He waves his hand. He’s been doing that a lot lately, finding that more and more frequently he just doesn’t have the words.

“I see. Well, I have a couch.”

It feels like a bizarre segue. “What?”

“A couch, Coach Young,” Rush snaps, much more like his usual self. “Trust me, it’s not that difficult to conceptualize.”

Young rolls his eyes. “I know  _ what _ a couch is—”

“Oh really.”

“Are you trying to offer me a place to stay?”

Rush sniffs. “Maybe.”

Young pinches the bridge of his nose. “And would it kill you to just,  _ say _ that?”

“I don’t make a habit of over-explaining concepts that should be immediately grasped by anyone over the age of ten.”

It feels like a trap. To what end, Young doesn’t know. He can’t help but think that maybe he’s not the only one that needs someone to push back. He sees the way people are around Rush, not that he blames them, and not that Rush doesn’t bring it upon himself. If he had to deal with years of averted eyes and shy, carefully polite conversations he would probably be prone to impulsive decisions too, if only to add a little interest to life. Whatever. He’s too drunk to truly analyze this and the hypothetical couch offered is sounding more and more enticing. 

“I punched you,” Young says finally.

Rush folds his arms against his chest. “Yes, yes. And I punched you. So I’d say we’re about even then, aren’t we?”

“Fine,” Young says, satisfied that this isn’t some elaborate plan of Rush’s to—he doesn’t know, lure him into a dark alley and mug him as payment for the scuffle?

“Yes, well. I’m just a short walk away. You’ll be able to retrieve your ridiculous truck in the morning and hopefully we’ll never have a repeat of this incident again.” Rush begins to take off down the street at a short clip, not bothering to see if Young is tagging along behind him.

Almost immediately Young’s knee starts to complain, straining under the pressure he’s put it through spending all day on his feet setting up a wedding. Not to mention all the standing that happened during the ceremony. 

“Do you mind?” he says shortly, cutting their pace down. Rush looks at him quizzically and Young gestures uncomfortably to his knee. 

Rush’s mouth twitches. “Apologies.”

Uncomfortable, Young diverts the topic. “What you should really be sorry about is calling my truck ridiculous. You know what’s ridiculous? That tin can you like to call a car.”

“I will not have my exceedingly normal and environmentally sound car unfavorably compared to the rusting hazard you spend your time riding around in,” Rush retorts disdainfully. 

Young shakes his head, a small smile threatening to encroach on his face. “I don’t know how you’ve managed to survive a single winter here. One snowfall and that car is buried, I don’t care how environmentally friendly it is.”

Young can tell by Rush’s silence that he’s absolutely correct and the thought cheers him up. The man may dress the part, but it’s glaringly obvious how out of place he is in their little mountain town.

“My car may be better suited to more temperate environs, but at least it’s not a visual and physical blight on the land,” Rush says smoothly after his pause.

“Whatever you say, cowboy,” Young chuckles. 

Rush gives him an offended look. “I’m offering you up my home, the least you can do is abstain from insulting me.”

“You’re the one who insulted my truck in the first place.”

“If we’re accounting for chronology then I do believe you threw the first punch.”

“I thought we were past that!”

“Don’t call me names.”

“Fine!” Young throws up a hand in an exasperated gesture. 

Rush sniffs disdainfully and stops in his tracks. Young almost runs into him but stops himself at the last second while Rush pulls out a sparse key ring and opens the door they’ve stopped in front of. Young squints at the faded lettering on the glass window.

“This is your office,” he says slowly.

Rush levels a withering look at him. “Nothing gets past you, does it.” Young waits it out, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a defensive answer. After a moment, Rush relents, sighing as he shoulders the door open. “I have a room upstairs,” he explains, which makes sense, if Young thinks about it.

He’s never seen Rush on a commute of any kind, and try as he may, he can’t imagine seeing him anywhere outside of Cloverdale’s small downtown. 

He follows close behind as Rush navigates his box-like office and yanks open a door next to the desk. A light flickers on, revealing a steep and narrow flight of wooden stairs that Young takes slowly, hand on the railing. 

Upstairs is… unexpected. Young’s not sure what he expected, exactly, but somehow this barren, utilitarian space was not quite it. He counts four pieces of furniture total—a nondescript couch with an equally nondescript coffee table, a bookshelf, and most surprising of all, an upright piano shoved into the corner under a layer of dust that speaks of years of neglect. There’s a radio sitting on the table, surrounded by little scraps of paper.

“Nice place,” Young says automatically when Rush returns to the main room with a Navajo-style blanket bundled in his arms. He dumps it unceremoniously on the couch and crosses his arms defensively.

“You can very well sleep out on the street if you find my accommodations so lacking,” Rush snaps. 

Young blinks, genuinely taken aback for the first time this evening. “Woah, hey. I didn’t say that.”

Rush’s mouth twitches unhappily and he looks away. “Yes, well. I don’t do a lot of entertaining,” he says. Young images this is as close as he’ll get to an apology. And sure, he does think the JP’s barren living situation is odd, but clearly there is some underlying issue that Young can’t even begin to parse so it lets it drop without so much a comment.

“Thank you,” Young says awkwardly. 

“Don’t thank me. I assure you this is entirely in my self-interest. Saving myself the paperwork from filing your eventual misdemeanor,” Rush says imperiously.

“Right.” Young draws out the word.

The easy banter that had accompanied them on the way there is gone, and both of them seem to have reached a point of uncertainty, like whatever script they had been following had suddenly ended. Young never was that good at improvising. 

Rush looks away and clears his throat. “You can let yourself out in the morning,” he says quickly. “I’ll be at work.”

Young doesn’t say anything about said work being directly downstairs but sort of wishes he did, because at least it would be  _ something _ other than this awkward social impasse. 

“Right,” he says again, wishing he wasn’t so goddamn drunk.

“Yes, well. I’ll be—” Rush gestures towards the other half of the apartment, which presumably leads to his own bedroom.

Young picks up the blanket Rush had dumped onto the couch. It’s heavy, scratchy, and a faint scent wafts up from it, smoky and a little musty. “Goodnight,” he says because that’s where it feels like they’ve arrived.

Rush gives him an odd look and leaves the room without saying anything.  _ God, that man’s a lot of work _ , Young thinks blearily before fumbling for the light switch. The room plunges into darkness before his eyes adjust to the warm yellow light of the streetlamps filtering in from the windows and rendering the stark room much softer. In the mild dark he starts peeling off his suit, draping the jacket, button down, and tie over the back of the couch, but hesitating at his pants. It feels a little wrong to take off his pants in another man’s house when he hardly knows him. 

The pants stay on and Young arranges himself on the narrow couch, propped half on his side to fit comfortably. The second he’s settled, a tidal wave of loneliness crashes into him, supplemented by how well and truly fucked his decision-making had been tonight. By some small mercy, sleep finds him quickly, postponing whatever wallowing is sure to come tomorrow. 

* * *

Rush waits a few minutes before reentering the living room under the pretense of collecting his work left out on the coffee table. Coach Young is already asleep, which Rush finds to be extraordinarily offensive. Sleep comes to him less easily these days and the man on the couch seems to be flaunting his ability to do so with ease. He hopes that Young isn’t under the impression that his offer for him to stay over is some misplaced token of goodwill. It certainly isn’t, even if he doesn’t feel particularly inclined to analyze the impulses that led him to offer in the first place. Doing so would be admitting to himself that he has, in part, succumbed to his painfully human urge to hurl himself into conflict.

Even sleep does little to relax Young’s blunt, pugilistic features. Rush wonders vaguely what he dreams about—most likely something as irritatingly masculine and simple as his person. There can only be so much depth to a man who spends the majority of his time attempting to get a number of small children to adhere to the arbitrary rules of team sports, extramarital affair with the town’s sheriff aside. 

He wonders, then, if Young was ever aware of his status as the product of American normalcy. Maybe the confines of that box chafed just a little too much, he grew curious as to what lay on the other side. It feels unlikely, Rush knowing what he does about him. David has no such boundaries, he knows, and it’s that very knowledge that has compelled Rush to keep him at an arm’s length since his arrival in Cloverdale despite the role he played in helping him establish a life here. It remains to be seen whether it was some genuine, repressed trait of Young’s or Telford’s calculated magnetism that led Young to stray from his comfortable and excruciatingly normal lifestyle. 

He suddenly finds occupying the same space as the slumbering coach to be absolutely intolerable and decidedly relocates to his small street-facing balcony. In a fit of pique, he doesn’t bother trying to be quiet and even slams the door behind him. When he glances through the window, Young hasn’t moved an inch. 

_ If you pitch a fit when there’s no one around to witness it… _ he imagines Gloria saying with laughing eyes.

The streetlights wash the balcony in a yellow glow and cast dramatic shadows on the worn wooden floor. He leans against the wrought iron railing, chipped paint picking at the threads of his jacket. It’s quiet out here. Brody’s is closed, and nearly everyone is at the wedding party. He doesn’t care for the quiet, not like this, when the world feels so still and he has to close his eyes and imagine the Earth hurtling along its orbit, to compensate for his own immediate lack of momentum. 

He doesn’t think Gloria would have liked it here. In fact he’s sure of it, and he likes it that way. That way, the memory of her is stored back in Berkeley where there are posh grocery stores and wine tastings and symphony halls—

Rush isn’t sure where this onset of nostalgia is coming from. Perhaps the abrupt change in his daily routine of the past three years has rattled him, even if the drunken baseball coach passed out on his couch is hardly what one would call a disruption. A nuisance, more like.

Above him, stars decorate the velvety expanse of the sky. They’re more visible here than any of the other places he’s lived, too soiled by light pollution.

Light takes just over four years to arrive at Earth from the closest star system.

Rush had never given the stars much thought. His engagement with space had always been of a purely theoretical nature, that is, until the man with the blue eyes had pulled him aside and presented him with a problem that insinuated a much more tangible application of relativistic theory. He had been confused, of course. It seemed unlikely that a group of astrophysicists working under the thumb of the American military would have need of his specialization in pure number theory, and all the secrecy felt absurdly cloak and dagger. That is, until he saw what their work implied—real-world use of conjectures on the Riemann zeta function in a field he had previously considered with mild derision. The implication that the stars might just be closer to humanity’s ever-stretching reach.

The closest star system is Alpha Centauri, undetectable by the naked human eye. Besides, four years is too soon. Gloria had been very ill four years ago. 

If he truly wanted a glimpse into the past then he should cast his gaze to Sirius, the Dog Man Star, eight light years away. What had he been doing, eight years ago? Practicing, teaching. Gloria doing much of the same. And all the while, somewhere deep in space, Sirius would have appeared just as it does now on Earth.

_ Everything we see in the sky belongs to the past _ , he thinks to himself somewhat hysterically. He digs his fingers into the sore knuckles of his right hand, the spot Young had caught his face twinging in response. The action wrenches himself back to the present, and he ruefully glances back up at the sky as though admonishing it for holding him captive.

Rush’s eyes are still trained upwards when it happens. So quickly it might be dismissed as visual fluke, a pinprick of light flares in the sky rife with otherworldly colors, and then vanishes as though it had never existed.


End file.
